Seeking That Which Is Lost
by Jedi Buttercup
Summary: It was no surprise, really, that the guy was related to Eliot.
1. Seeking That Which Is Lost

**Title**: Seeking That Which Is Lost

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Rating**: T

**Summary**: _It was no surprise, really, that the guy was related to Eliot_. 1600 words.

**Prompt**: 24 Days of Ficmas, Day 14: For tygermama. Prompt: The Mummy Returns/Leverage, family shenanigans and a sacred dagger that can be used to raise the dead.

* * *

Richard 'Ricochet' O'Connell was the scariest fucking centenarian that Hardison had ever met. (Not, you understand, that he'd ever met all that many centenarians).

And it wasn't just because of his record. Which, seriously. How was the guy even human? His history read like the back of a series of pulp adventure novels. Orphaned in Egypt by American missionary parents; joined the French Foreign Legion for the usual lurid reasons; actually made it to the officer's ranks, which was pretty rare for someone not born speaking the language; survived when the entire rest of his garrison got slaughtered on a bogus mission into the desert; _somehow_ snagged a Brit aristocrat's daughter; and that was only the _first_ three decades. He'd actually been hanged once, full-on 'hung by the neck until dead', and survived to tell about it- and that was during his _first_ encounter with the woman he later married.

No- at least half of the reason Hardison wanted to take back every single old guy joke he'd ever made was standing right there in the bar, dressed in button-fly jeans, a linen shirt rolled up at the cuffs, and actual brown leather suspenders. Rick O'Connell did _not_ look his age, despite the antique wardrobe; he looked late sixties, _maybe_, or possibly early seventies if the light hit him just wrong and emphasized his crow's feet and smile lines. He still had a full head of thick white hair, a shrewd, piercing gaze, and shoulders broader than most guys half his age who weren't named John McClane. The only real concession he seemed to've made to the passage of time was the cane propped under his right hand and a certain amount of knobbiness in his wrists and knuckles.

It was no surprise, really, that the guy was related to Eliot.

"I'm sorry, you want us to do _what_?" Nate asked, raising his eyebrows at him.

'Call me Rick' cast a sidelong look at the barstool where Eliot was studiously playing with his beer bottle; Eliot sighed and shrugged his shoulders a little, conveying whole sentences without so much as saying a word.

Rick sighed, and shifted his grip on the cane. "Look, I know how it sounds," he said. "A three thousand year old dagger that can be used to raise the dead? I don't blame you for not believing. I didn't, the first time I ran into this stuff. But you'd better believe that _this_ guy believes it's real; and that's why he's stolen it. Three days from now, when the stars are aligned just right, he's going to try to bring his dead girlfriend back, and believe me when I say you don't want to know what he's going to do to make sure it happens."

"..._always_ the same story," Eliot muttered under his breath, shaking his head grimly. "How do you still get mixed up in this crazy shit?"

"I'm sorry, did you say something?" Rick cupped his left hand slightly around his ear and titled it in Eliot's direction. "Because I could have sworn I just heard you _curse_ at me, and I know your mother raised you better than that."

The look on Eliot's face had Hardison clearing his throat loudly to avoid bursting into laughter.

Nate gave Hardison a dirty look, then nodded at Rick and asked another question. "You said that prior to the theft, the dagger was under the protection of these- Medjai? Not to sound skeptical, but- they're actually in the same country, and I assume at least as knowledgeable as you are about its intended purposes. So why come to us? Why aren't they retrieving it?"

Rick's expression darkened; and wow, it _was_ possible for him to remind Hardison of Eliot more than he did already. That scowl had to be genetic. "They've tried. But they're still very- traditional in some ways, and Sirk has the local law enforcement on his side. There's no way they're getting past his security without being obvious about it, and probably causing a major incident. So they asked me to get involved."

"You mean they called you up and started in on that 'traveler from the West' bullshit again." Eliot growled.

Rick ignored him. "But since _some_ people seem to think I'm too old to go out into the field anymore, I passed it along to the next most capable Medjai in the family. He tells me his team is the best. So, are you? Can you stop Sirk and get the dagger back before the deadline?"

Nate curled one hand around his coffee mug, and tapped at the hard surface of the bar with the fingers of the other. Then he nodded, and looked about ready to answer- when the back door opened from the building's stairwell, and the attention of the entire group briefly swung to see who had arrived.

It was Sophie, cell phone held loosely in one hand and a look of perturbed concentration on her face. "Sorry I'm late," she told Nate as she slid onto the bar stool beside him, her attention still on the slim black device she was sliding into a pocket. "An- old contact called, wanting me to do a job for him; I've told him I don't work without my team anymore, but he was extremely reluctant to take 'no' for an answer."

She didn't seem to have noticed Rick- but he'd definitely noticed her; Hardison saw him do a distinct double-take at the sound of her voice, and he leaned slightly around Nate for a better look. "That can't be my favorite niece I hear?"

Sophie started, drawing in a sharp breath and clapping a hand to her chest; then she was off her stool in half a second, pressing Rick's free hand between her own almost before Hardison registered she'd moved. "Uncle Rick!" she exclaimed. "What are you doing here? Is this about the call I just received from my grandfather? It's just like him to send you all this way to try and convince me not to do the responsible thing for once!"

_Uncle_? Hardison dragged his attention away from the _second_ unexpected family encounter of the day to glance at Eliot, and found him staring at Sophie as though he'd never seen her before. He looked stunned, and just a little horrified, much to Hardison's bemusement.

Rick made an exasperated noise. "I _told_ Jonathan I had it covered; he should never have called you in the first place. But he's making noises about being on his deathbed again, and cursing all bloody Americans; frankly," he briefly lowered his voice to an ostentatious whisper, "I think he's getting a little senile. Don't worry about it. I _am_ a little surprised to see you visiting Eliot, though; I didn't think your mother had bothered to introduce her precious daughter to the disreputable branch of the family."

Now it was _Sophie's_ turn to look like she'd been poleaxed; she gave Eliot an utterly indecipherable look, the likes of which Hardison hadn't seen since the snafu over the second David, then shook her head. "Visiting Eliot? Why would you think I was visiting _Eliot?_ And what has he to do with the family?" She laid a casual hand on Nate's shoulder, as though the gesture were unconscious; Hardison had no doubt it was totally calculated, though.

"What has _he_ to do...?" Rick blinked at her, taken aback. "You mean you don't know?"

"You have _got_ to be kidding me," Eliot blurted suddenly, stepping back from his own stool.

"No way," Hardison said gleefully, unable to hold it in any longer as he glanced between them. "Unh-uh. You are _not_ telling me these guys are cousins and didn't even know it!"

"I think he just did," Nate said, sounding a little stunned; but he had that 'Aha' look on his face, as though a long-perplexing set of puzzle pieces was finally fitting together. It looked distinctly smug on him- though part of that might have come from that nonverbal claim from Sophie, too. 'Bout time.

"He's my _what?_" Sophie, again.

Rick glanced between her and Eliot- then suddenly looked inexpressibly amused. "He's _my_ great-grandson, so you do the math. Lord, if Evie could see this, she'd rip me up one side and down the other; you take as much after her as you do after Jonathan, you know. But Eliot's all O'Connell. If you've been working together very long, there have got to be some interesting stories."

_Cousins_. Second cousins once removed, if they wanted to get all technical about it. _Sophie and Eliot_. Hardison was _never_ going to let them forget it. Wow. It was like finding out Parker was Nate's long-lost daughter, or something- which, he frantically tried to wipe his mind of _that_ thought. Better not tempt fate.

"You're not wrong about that," Eliot snorted.

Sophie still looked pale. "All the time I've spent trying to establish a life separate from the family legend..."

"And it was with you the whole time," Rick still looked amused. "Sorry, darlin'. You definitely got the Carnahan gene for luck."

She shook her head; then finally let herself laugh, too.

It was at _that_ point that Parker breezed in the bar's _front_ door, bright-cheeked and stamping snow off her shoes. Her brow furrowed a little as she took in the scene; then she gravitated straight to Hardison, sidling up next to him with a puzzled look.

"Okay, so what did I miss?" she whispered fiercely in his ear.

Hardison grinned so wide his cheeks started to hurt. "Oh, you are _not_ going to believe this..."

-x-


	2. The Carnahan Gene For Luck

**Title**: The Carnahan Gene for Luck

**Author**: Jedi Buttercup

**Rating**: T

**Disclaimer**: The words are mine; the worlds are not.

**Summary**: _"Now, Uncle Rick," Sophie said. "You know very well you're not in a position to cast stones."_ 2400 words.

**Spoilers**: Leverage post-S3; Mummy Returns with a dash of TODE.

**Notes**: 24 Days of Ficmas 2011, Day 3: for ldydragon7. Prompt: "More of Seeking That Which Is Lost 'verse. Strange Happens, shenanigans and the rest of the team learning more about what it means to be part of the O'Connell /Carnahan family tree."

* * *

"There," Eliot's great-grandfather said, pointing toward a tall, carved wood cabinet standing along one wall of the mansion's library. "I know how you feel about guns these days, so, take your pick."

The library. Of the _mansion_. With acres of green lawn visible out the windows, stained glass panels in the internal doors, and shelves upon shelves of leather-bound books interspersed with antiquities from all over the world. Hardison might not be much for paper and ink himself, and the loft above the bar in Boston held all the earthly luxuries he could possibly need, but he still felt dwarfed in the presence of so much conspicuous consumption. He'd long suspected Sophie came from some monied name or another across the pond, but even _she_ seemed kinda awed by the place.

Eliot followed the older man's gesture- older, not old, 'cause despite the cane, white hair, and the fact he had to be like a hundred and thirty by the calendar, he acted more energetic than Nate did most days- and strode up to the cabinet, turning the latch and carefully opening its doors.

Nate looked like he'd bitten into something sour as Eliot made reverent noises and lightly ran his fingers over the hilt of a long, curvy looking blade. "Didn't you bring your Hanzo?" he asked.

"'Course I did," Eliot said absently. "It's an awesome sword. But _these_ are something else. Granddad, is this...?"

Rick nodded. "Ardeth Bey's. He willed it to me; his son Ammar brought it a few years back."

"And this one; I remember this from the time we came to visit." Eliot shifted his attention to a straighter sword made from an almost greenish-looking metal, with a narrow guard, a leather-wrapped grip and a fuller running most of the way up the blade. The symbols on the guard almost looked Chinese, but Hardison couldn't place it any further than that; most of his sword terminology came from MMORPGs, and there were some things the gaming manuals and NPCs behind pixelated counters just didn't cover.

"Uh-huh. The Dragon Emperor's," Rick said, raising a slightly knobby hand to press the knuckles against a spot low in his abdomen. "Alex told every one of his grandsons that story, I expect."

"Story?" Hardison's ears perked up at that, and he took a few steps closer to the scary cabinet of sharp and shiny. Before Eliot had introduced Rock O'Connell to the team, getting him to talk about his past had been like pulling teeth. "What story are we talking about?"

Eliot turned to him with a smirk. "One right out of those sci-fi shows you love so much. There's yeti in it, and terracotta emperors, and the whole reason Granddad lived to celebrate his second turn of the century. I _know_ you been driving yourself crazy over that."

"_Yeti_?" Hardison spluttered. That was fantasy, not sci-fi; didn't Eliot know he was mixing his genres? "Dude, you don't want to tell me, you just gotta say so."

Rick chuckled, a low, rich sound that really did have no business coming from a guy a hundred plus. "He isn't lying. Though seriously, Eliot; we don't know that. It could just be clean living."

"Clean living?" Eliot snorted. "You forget who you're talking to? Besides, how the hell would that explain Uncle Jon?"

Rick made a complicated face at that, then nodded. "Okay. You got me there."

"Now, Uncle Rick," Sophie said, pulling herself away from the Chinese-looking statue she'd been examining with a highly interested eye. "You know very well you're not in a position to cast stones."

Rick shook his head with an amused smile. "I never did understand what your grandmother saw in Jon, you know. She managed to help him keep a grip on his money, and gave him entrée to all the best parties back home, which was a problem after the way he'd left Egypt, China, _and_ Peru... and then she taught his kids to be a bunch of straight-laced, high-instep society ornaments? I'm just glad some of _your_ generation were salvageable. I wouldn't trust anything your mom says about me or your granddad, sweetheart- _or_ Jonathan's behavior when she's in the same room. He knows which side his bread is buttered on. It's not like he can cut ties and go back on the con anymore- he's even older than I am, and showing it, too."

His expression sobered a little, the lines around his mouth softening as he looked at her. "He's only half-kidding about being on his deathbed again, this time."

Sophie gave him a soft smile. "I know," she said. "I still think half your stories must be exaggeration, though. I know I'm good; but no one's _that_ good. Even if all that nonsense about mummies and magic has any truth to it, that sort of luck simply isn't possible."

"I don't know about _that_," Hardison broke in. "Not that I'm saying I believe in mummies and all. Unless you've got a Youtube video or something for proof. But what else do you call some of the things _we've_ done the last few years, except crazy luck?" He sketched a circle with a pointing finger to include him, Eliot, Sophie, Nate, and Parker where she stood lightly fingering a sparkly-gold Egyptian bust-thing halfway across the room. "C'mon, Sophie. We stole us a whole damn _country_."

Sophie opened her mouth to object again, then paused and smiled distantly, probably reliving the elaborate death scene she'd pulled off in San Lorenzo. "Point, I suppose."

"Wait, wait," Rick said, raising his eyebrows and turning to Eliot. "Now _this_ is a story I haven't heard."

Eliot winced, pulling away from the sword cabinet with the sheath for one of the swords in his hand. "Remember how you said you didn't want to know anything about my dealings with Damien Moreau?"

Rick paused, then scowled, face darkening dramatically. "I thought you were _done_ with that poisonous little toerag, Eliot."

"Careful, Granddad, your Grandma Evelyn is showing," Eliot snorted. "And, yeah. This time for fucking _good_. I'm done with that life."

Rick stared at him a long moment, then glanced around at the rest of them, finally meeting Nate's gaze. Nate nodded; and Rick relaxed again, leaning forward a little more obviously on his cane. "Well. Good, then." There was clearly a lot more argument built up there, one he wasn't airing for non-family's sake.

Hardison resolved to ask Sophie about it later, when Eliot wasn't around to growl them quiet. He was sure she'd get the story out of her uncle; she was looking pretty damn curious at the idea of all the family gossip she'd obviously missed out on. He knew how she loved a good drama.

Speaking of dramas. Instinct pricked at the back of his mind; if he'd been running a con on these folks, he'd have waited for just such a scene to make his move in the background. He glanced toward Parker- and caught her giving the same glance around, a tiny, shiny something clasped between his fingers. He widened his eyes and furrowed his brows in her direction, shaking his head as obviously as he dared.

She gave him a tiny pout back, then heaved a dramatic sigh and laid the object back on a shelf, patting it mournfully before taking a deliberate step away and lacing her fingers behind her back.

Damn. Not that he thought she'd deliberately steal from Eliot and Sophie's family- Parker mostly lifted things by force of habit these days, randomly redistributing tiny valuables around the team's apartments when she had nothing better to do- but if she forgot to put something back, here? Yeah, he wasn't going to risk her pissing Eliot off. _Or_ his granddad. Between the two, Hardison wasn't sure which was scarier.

As he broke gazes with her, he noticed a dude with white hair in formal attire opening the doorway from the hall- the butler guy who'd opened the front door an hour ago when they'd arrived. "Hey, guys. We were expecting some more guests?"

Everyone turned to face the door. The butler pursed his lips at Hardison at the preemption, one eyebrow raised disdainfully, then switched his attention to Rick. "The party of Medjai have arrived, sir. Shall I show them to the guest suites?"

"Nah," Rick waved his free hand dismissively. "Tell them we're in the library; they can come right on back. They'll have to leave for Cairo tonight, so there's no time to waste."

"Very good, sir," the butler said, his expression even prissier, if possible. Then he withdrew, closing the door again behind him.

Rick heaved a sigh. "Never could get those guys to stop calling me _sir_. At least they've dropped the title, these days. If Evie hadn't insisted on such a big house, or if our daughter didn't like the place so much..."

"Is your daughter...?" Nate prompted him, carefully, reintroducing himself to the conversation. He still looked a little put out, whether from the atmosphere reminding him of the bad old times with IYS or the fact that he _wasn't_ the focus of the team's attention, Hardison couldn't guess.

"Yeah," Rick nodded, easily picking up what Nate meant. "She was a late baby; kind of a _thank god we're still alive_ after Shanghai, you know? Alex was twenty-three when she was born, and she's kind of ruled the roost here ever since." He chuckled. "Pity you won't be staying long enough to meet her family this trip; they're on vacation. Maybe on the way back."

"_If_ we make it back," Eliot interrupted darkly as he buckled the sheath of the sword he'd picked into a shoulder harness on his back. "_You_ might think I'm supposed to be the next Medjai in the family, but I'm still not so sure that it's a good idea."

Nate frowned at that. "I keep hearing the word 'Medjai' thrown around as though it was a title, in your case and your grandfather's... but it's also the name of the desert tribes who were supposed to be guarding the dagger we're on our way to Egypt to steal back?"

"It's this whole 'destined Warrior for God' thing," Eliot said, rolling his eyes. "There's this whole challenge and response thing the Bey from Granddad's time did when he saw Granddad's tattoo. Bunch of horseshit, in my opinion. Even if it applied to _him_, I'm hardly holy guardian material."

"Tattoo?" Parker perked up, trailing fingers down the spines of the books on the nearest shelves as she drifted back toward the group.

"Yeah; here." Rick propped his cane against the nearest table for a moment, then leaned his hip against it as well and carefully worked free the ties on the leather bracer wrapped around one of his forearms. "It's a little faded, now, but see- two kings, the pyramid, the eye? I've had it since I was a kid."

The library door opened again while they were all crowding close for a look, admitting two guys with long dark hair, tattooed cheeks, and the kind of statures that made the robe look a lot less ridiculous than Hardison would have expected given the setting.

"O'Connell," the older one said, with a kind of half-bow of respect, his eyes lingering on the exposed tattoo. Then he glanced around at the rest of them, finally pausing on Eliot. "This is the heir of whom you spoke?"

Rick dropped the bracer on the table and grabbed his cane again, wincing a little as he shifted his weight back to his feet, and took the few steps necessary to drop his hand on Eliot's shoulder. "Yeah. Ammar, this is my great-grandson, Eliot Spencer. Eliot, Ammar Bey."

Eliot looked distinctly uncomfortable at the presentation, to Hardison's practiced eye, but since it was Eliot, that came out more as belligerent than anything else. "Pleasure," he gritted out.

"On my part as well," the Medjai said, politely. Then the other warrior stepped up behind him- a _girl_ warrior, Hardison suddenly noticed- and murmured something in what sounded like Arabic.

Hardison didn't speak the language, but he knew Eliot did, and the man suddenly went pale as Ammar turned to face the girl, both eyebrows arched high. "It is true, then," Ammar replied in English. Then he gestured her forward.

She was pretty, though about as opposite of Eliot's old girlfriend Aimee as possible in the looks department, dark eyed, dark haired, and several shades darker in skin tone. She was smirking a little as she met Eliot's gaze, though, as though she knew how irritated he was. Then she reached out and laid a hand on both Rick's tattoo and Eliot's corresponding bare wrist and closed her eyes, switching languages yet again as she said something sonorous and ominous-sounding.

Eliot made like he was going to yank his arm away, swearing under his breath- then froze, staring down at his wrist in disbelief as light flared between her fingers. Rick swore, too, the moment she let go- then rubbed at the suddenly bare skin there with a snort.

"_Now_ do you believe me?" Rick said to his grandson, quirking an amused smile.

"You didn't have to go to all this production to convince me," Eliot said dryly, rubbing at the mystically inked skin with a disturbed expression. "Really, you shouldn't have." There was something almost relieved in the set of his shoulders, though, which... yeah. Hardison would normally scoff at the thought of Eliot being insecure about _anything_, but he could see how it might get a little stifling in the shadow of a man like Richard 'Ricochet' O'Connell. Alarming 'magic' shows like that aside.

"Neat. So you got marks like that for all the rest of us?" Hardison teased, slipping easily into the role of diversion. "And hey, what's _your_ name? Only fair everyone else get introduced."

The woman turned toward him, eyeing him up and down with a sly, uncomfortably knowing smile. "Only if you prove worthy of them," she said in lightly accented English. "I am Faiza."

"Call me Alec," he said, smiling warmly back.

A clearing throat reminded him of Parker's presence, and he winced. "Ah, yeah. And this here's Parker, and Sophie, and Nate. And, uh, I guess y'all know Rick?"

She glanced around at the others, amused, then inclined her head. "I look forward to working with you all."

-x-


End file.
